Greenpeace seeks changes to Kyoto Protocol at COP18

November 24, 2012 - 4:00:30 am

A COP18 conference information booth set up at the Sheraton Park on the Corniche.

(Qassim Rahmatullah)

By Isabel Ovalle

DOHA: Greenpeace says it wants parties participating in the United Nations climate change conference (COP18), which will take place in Qatar from November 26, to adopt Doha amendments to the Kyoto Protocol, producing a legally binding agreement on a second commitment period applying from January 1, 2013. Hoda Baraka, Communications representative of the Arab World Project of Greenpeace Mediterranean, told The Peninsula that the organisation also wants parties to ensure that “COP matters for the climate” by taking concrete decisions to reduce the rise in the global temperature, including cutting the excess emission allowances from the first Kyoto commitment period.

The organisation also wants new climate action for countries that have no international pledges and parties to adopt a plan to bridge the remaining gap between the politics and the science, and peak emissions by 2015.

Another Greenpeace demand is for parties to fill the empty climate fund with medium-term funding of a minimum $15 billion per year, starting from January 1, 2013, and to make a decision on the key sources of the $100bn per year promised from 2020, with specific funding allocated for mitigation, adaptation and forest protection.

Finally, Greenpeace wants parties to adopt a roadmap towards a legally binding global agreement by 2015. Greenpeace has also said recently it will not organize protests during the United Nations climate change conference (COP18) that will take place in Doha. During COP17, celebrated in Durban (South Africa) in 2011, the organization occupied the conference center where UN climate talks were being held.